‘I fully support actions to improve air quality however, this will disproportionately hit those people and small businesses least able to afford the daily charges.’

Dagenham and Rainham MP Jon Cruddas talks about the planned expansion of the UlEZ across all of London.

On Friday 4 March London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan announced that he intends to extend the Ultra Low Emission Zone across all London.

Today, the Dagenham and Rainham MP Jon Cruddas shares his thoughts on this plan by the Mayor.

The Mayor for London has indicated that he intends to run a consultation exercise on extending the Ultra Low Emission Zone for vehicles to cover all London.

I fully support actions to improve air quality across London, indeed locally we have been campaigning against proposed increased incineration for many years. However I am concerned this proposed extension  will disproportionately hit those people and small businesses least able to afford the daily charges and could become a tax on working people in the middle of an unprecedented cost of living squeeze facing my constituents this year.

Many low paid commuters can’t afford the public transport fares and most certainly can not yet afford to buy electric vehicles and be exempt from the charges. Whilst ULEZ might be reasonable in central London where people have a good network of tube and bus connections that isn’t necessarily the case in parts of outer London and especially so in much of my Dagenham and Rainham constituency.

So I have a number of concerns regarding the extension of the ULEZ and will be raising these with Mayor and his team.